Mental Health Center Offices in New Site

The San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center Inc. has moved its administrative offices to 14535 Sherman Circle in Van Nuys.

The move was made to compensate for the increased paperwork that has come with the private center’s rapid growth in recent years, officials said.

The new facility, which the center is leasing, has more than 7,600 feet of office space and allows officials to continue expanding their programs, which already serve about 2,000 patients a year, according to a spokeswoman.

“We’ve grown so much that we were just so cramped in the old building,” spokeswoman Dorie Paley said. “This move definitely helps a lot.”

The center has 12 locations and 12 programs throughout the Valley. The adult services program includes case management, outpatient, rehabilitative day-care, counseling and employment training skills.

Other programs include services for the mentally ill homeless, the elderly, the sick and a bilingual English-Spanish program.

In the past 10 years, Paley said, the center has increased its services more than fivefold.

In recent years, the center has added an adolescent education program that offers high school classes for 13- to 19-year-old patients and the Victory Clubhouse, a program that offers patients a place to socialize, learn communication skills and make friends.

“We try to address every segment of the population we can,” Paley said. “As we grow, we are finding more ways to do that.”

An open house for the new facility is tentatively scheduled for May, Paley said.

For more information on the mental health center, call (818) 901-4830.